Former staffer recalls working for Kennedy

August 26, 2009

Rikki Ragland was awakened early this morning with a phone call from her dad telling her about Senator Kennedy's death.

"He wanted me to hear it first from him, before I turned on the news," she said. "At first, I had a little sense of peace for him and then just devastation and sheer sadness - for my personal loss and for his family's loss and the loss for our country."

Ragland, director of Public Relations for North Shore University Health System, was 21 and a recent college graduate when she met Ted Kennedy while vacationing with her family in Maine. They were in Booth Bay Harbor, waiting to catch a ferry when they spotted the Senator.

After discussing her background, Ragland said she asked him for a job on the spot, and he said, yes.

"I said, 'Thank you Senator,' and he kept telling me to call him Ted," Ragland said.

Ragland worked as an assistant to one of Kennedy's speech writers for 1 ½ years in 1993 and 1994.

Her memories include watching him on the Senate floor and rushing to hand him briefing books, how the Senator always made her feel like she was the only one in the room, how he always asked about her mother and sister that he met that first day in Maine. She also learned that it was an unspoken office rule not to mention Chappaquiddick.

But mostly, Ragland says it was Kennedy's passion for grooming the next generation to be leaders that stands out the most.

"His office back then was filled with young people. While people say it is important to nurture young people, he proved it."